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Interview with Jason Matts : Northern Rap

I. Classic oversized T-shirt vs. Standard T’s?

I used to wear baggy
T-Shirts…but now I got dress sense! Joking…but definitely a cap man, the people
seem to like it.

II. Favorite spread for Toast?

Vegemite. I’m a big fan of salty flavors

Australian fans
of Obie Trice would know that the Detroit rapper graced our shores last year.
Among the stops on his whirlwind tour was the Standard on Oxford Street, where
he was supported by Sydney based hip hop artist Jason Matts.

We had the
opportunity to meet up with Northern Beaches rapper Jason Matts, part of the
curtain raiser for the Shady Records artist. Raconteurs Inc. chatted with Matts
about his current projects, career aspirations and general awesome happenings -
“at the moment it’s just really exciting. It’s taken a lot of dedication to get
to this point and there have been numerous times where I thought I would never
get this far but then all of a sudden there’s fireworks”.

Having started
making music in his teens, the now 26 year old is beginning to make a name for
himself but where did it all begin?

This could take
a while, but if I had to just pin point a few particular moments or reasons I
got into rap then they would go something like this...

I was always a
words guy. Shit at mathematics, but had a natural way with words. I wouldn’t
say I enjoyed English classes in general but I really enjoyed when we had to
write our own poems or short stories. I went from poetry to Rap because it was
more accessible for me, and a more current way of expressing yourself. More
relatable I suppose…music is a soundtrack to your life or a moment, and to me
hip-hop definitely had its moments where listening to it made sense.

So Hip Hop is a words
game but it’s more than just lyrics - it's a whole attitude?

100% this is what sets
Rap apart from every other genre. It’s somebody’s thoughts and opinions
scribbled down on paper. Rap to me is the closest you get to watching a film or
reading a book when it comes to music. It’s so descriptive and real. There are
all these different characters that you fall in love with or grow to hate or
dislike due to their personalities.

There are more funny
things happening in rap songs, violent things happening in rap songs, romantic
things happening in rap songs, political things happening in raps songs, more
than any other genre I believe. It’s completely diverse because Hip Hop is the
voice of the people, not the label, or the history of the genre, but the modern
day person

And on stage?

When you have the
support of your crew, you get up there and have fun – it’s pretty much a house
party within this venue with your mates…as long as you’re having fun the
audience is going to have fun.

You produce music
within a crew but enjoy being an independent artist too?

Independent work – You
get full creative control over everything, from the instrumental, the theme,
the flow, everything. You can write whatever you feel you need to over it and
not have to worry about maybe not agreeing with what the other artist is saying
in their verse etc. I really enjoy organizing gigs with other artists, and
jumping up on stage for a song in their set, but I will always be my own
independent artist because I have strong views and a clear vision for myself.

Collaborative work –
Love it. Sometimes I can have a song that I really like, but I can’t for
whatever reason come up with a second or third verse that will do the first
verse justice, or maybe I have a massive beat and a great chorus or hook for it
but just can’t seem to get a verse down – bam – I send it off to one of the
other artists and see what they come back with – most of the time you will find
that what they put down inspires and motivates you to write – and you have no
dramas after that. Another great reason for collaborating is having a new
flavor on the song, something to mix things up. You also reach more people when
you collab, it’s just like networking – your fans hear the other guy because
they want to hear my song, and his fans hear me because they want to hear the
song he features on. It’s a win win.

What projects are you
excited about now?

Material wise –The
songs I write about these days are the things that are a happening in my life
and my friends...it represents me.None of this lame 15 track
bullshit you see these days. I want people to be able to get to work and back
without having to hear the same song twice. I miss those days…just having fun…a
heavy beat and the flow.

Now I have the other
members of the crew I have decided to have all of them on an album at one
stage to showcase each other. I’m jumping on collaboration
tracks with most of my crew, and also a few other Sydney Artists. I think I
always wanted to be the ‘featuring...’ guy haha.

What’s on the horizon?

What I’ve learnt is
that it’s all about cooking your work. Cook it and cook lots of it. There’s no
point dropping a single if you don’t have an album ready to back it up once you
have the people listening.

So right now it’s
collaborating with as many artists as possible, dropping as many mixtape tracks
as possible, and doing as many shows and gigs in the Sydney areas as regularly
as I can just to build up a home fan base.

At the end of the day,
I’m not praying for expensive cars or a beach front mansion, I just want to be
able to afford to quit my day job and continue to produce music and perform all
over Australia and hopefully the world. It’s the experiences I’m dreaming of,
not the money.